solar flares and sharing
the mysteries of the aurora borealis
I wish any mother the most splendid day while also hoping anyone who has ever had a mother enjoyed spending the day happily. To any and every mother, thank you for the long nights making sure they got home safely, thank you for taking something to school left behind in the morning rush, thank you for enduring a fourteen year old daughter bursting into tears over something you didn’t even know you did (if yours wasn’t like mine, you won’t understand this), and thank you for whatever super cool culinary delight you alone have ever made, at least in your kids’ eyes.
We are on about the sixth band of heavy rain across the Chesapeake today which is definitely getting boring. Yes, I know I whined about too little rain last year so I recognise too much this year. Mea culpa.
We had a pretty, if cooler day yesterday only to have a storm actually knock our power off line last night. No wonder I couldn’t figure why I was so rested at 0130 since the actual time was 0340.
It was an interesting sunrise, as I described on my purely photo substack https://CynthiaWatsonCaptures.substack.com. The dense cloud bank we are still seeing (it’s started raining yet again as I write this paragraph) was evident as early as 0445 this morning when the streaks of initial light were so high because the clouds so fully blocked the horizon.
It turned out not an intensely brightly coloured sunrise but one with a gorgeous gentle rose colour.
The clouds producing this too-frequent rain prevented us from seeing what I reckon must be one of the greatest sights, the Aurora Borealis. I have never actually seen one which is contributing to my frustration with this weekend’s rain. We started to do an Iceland stop over last year when we went to Britain, only to realise that clouds on the night or two of the stopover would mean zilch, zip, nada in exchange.
The descriptions of the planetary marvel are even more spectacular than our solar eclipse last month. The intense colours, the light swirls, the recognition of extraplanetary rareties are so far beyond our mortal control.
My request today, in true crowd-sourcing fashion, is for you to share any Aurora photographs with ACC readers. (Yes, the chat will be open for anyone today) If you can do a civic duty to share the glory of nature, it (sun’s back…this is a minute by minute afternoon in the Chesapeake) will brighten someone’s day and pique curiosity about shared experiences.
Our modern environment seems to have many individualised ‘Aha moments’ but not as many shared ones. You will be an action creating consequence by sharing any photographs you took. No need for apologies or embarrassment as I don’t have anything to even show so my contribution is pretty poor for this column.
Thank you for sharing, for celebrating, for reading Actions Create Consequences. My goal is to expand civil, measured conversation and experiences, one by one to help us address the challenges we face. Please share this if you feel it might intrigue someone. Thank you for those who subscribe to the column.
Have a great week. Be well and be safe. FINauer